NASSAU, Bahamas, May 17, 2020 — Marlon Johnson, the Bahamas Government’s Financial Secretary, posted this NEWSDAY graph on his Facebook page on Sunday, May 17, 2020 with the following caption: “Overall the CARICOM Countries have done an exceptional job in containing the impact of COVID-19 in my view.”
Indeed they have. Oliver Joseph, Grenada’s cabinet minister with ministerial responsibility for CARICOM, said that the plan is for CARICOM Member states to open external borders for regional travel only and not international air traffic for the first phase of reopening borders which is tentatively set to be enforced in June 2020, according to an article in CARICOM Today on May 15.
“What we are discussing is to first allow regional travel; that is, travel within the islands such as travel between Grenada and Trinidad or between Trinidad and Barbados. We are not looking at having international carriers come to the island yet,” said Joseph, who recently chaired the 50th Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED).
During the virtual meeting, the COTED approved a strategy for the re-opening of economies in the Caribbean Community. The Council is made up of Trade Ministers and officials agreed to a framework centred on the development and adherence to defined metrics related to the Covid-19 virus, which will guide in the reopening process.
Grenada’s borders as well as many regional ports of entry and exit were closed in March as part of efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19. Like Grenada, the contagion was introduced to the country by infected travellers from the United Kingdom and the United States in mid-March 2020. Grenada’s index case was a 50-year-old female who travelled from the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Bahamas Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has relaxed restrictions on southern islands of The Bahamas with no reported cases of COVID-19, allowing commercial activity to resume.
Asked at a press conference if more Family Islands could expect to see similar freedoms soon, Dr Merceline Dahl-Regis, consultant to the Office of the Prime Minister, said they have “been monitoring the situation very carefully.”
“When we look at some of the other islands – Andros, Cat Island, Long Island – I think the Prime Minister has asked would we support that and we’ve certainly given it strong consideration,” The Tribune quoted her as saying.
